LukakutoStamford

Space is a luxury but that's the point. Lukaku can create space when he's facing the goal or running onto the ball. He's just quite poor when he has his back to the goal. Lukaku is an ideal counter attack poacher where he can be fed a ball in space. I almost wonder if he should get a chance as a inside winger rather than as a target man. If you look at how he scores most of his goals they are from Lukaku running into the ball or creating space when he's facing goal. As I mentionned earlier watch Benteke play target man you will be amazed a difference between the two and how many brilliant head flicks and 1-2s Benteke creates and how easily Benteke can turn when with his back to the goal. I'm like Romelu a lot and he has certain qualities that you can't teach but as it so happens his weaknesses are also in areas that you can't really teach either. He can improve but ability to improve is limited because the skills are innate and your innate level gives the range that you can fall within.

Continuing to compare Hazard's ability to score goals against other players is ridiculous. Bale is a better scorer because that's one of his top strengths. Hazard is playmaking wing so I have no idea why people get so mesmerzied by his goal scoring numbers. Hazard created the most chances of any player in the PL, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, and Serie A. People need to understand that Hazard is never going to be a goal scorer like the top goal scoring strikers/wingers. His ceiling might by 25 goals in a PL season and that might even be a too high a number. Hazard is a 15-20 goal and 15-20 assist type of player. He's a lot more Zidane than Messi so his stats will never measure up in terms of goals, but when you see he creates the most chances of any top European player and he has the most dribbles and then you watch the nuances of his game and the brilliance of his play you can better understand why he's one of the best players in the world. Again he's not above criticism but criticizing him for not being more like Messi or CR7 is patently absurd. He does need to perform better and he can,but god forbid if he actually had similar talent around him like Messi has had at Barcelona and Ronaldo has had at Madrid or Robben/Ribery have had Bayern. The guy is a brilliant footballer and so much of his style and decision making goes unappreciated because people get too wrapped in goals and assists as a measure of value rather creation. Hazard really should have had 10 more assists this season for Chelsea.

Just think about Messi and Hazard playing together and how ridiculous that combination would be. Hazard would have the ultimate finisher and someone to play onto his visionary play. Of course when you wake up from that dream and realize that Hazard is teamed with Torres it's like drinking sour milk.

Born in the US to a Belgian father, dual citizen. Why do you ask?P.s. Learning Flemish is a bitch.

Hazard is never going to be the guy who scores 30-40 goals in a campaign because it's not his personality.

Could Hazard stand to be more selfish at times? Could he impose his will more? Absolutely. The problem thus far has been a lack of overlap by the center backs playing fullback as well as through runs by other attackers. This applies to both Chelsea and the Belgian NT. If you watch closely Hazard is being marked by 2-3 men every time he marks the ball so its unrealistic to expect him to beat 2-3 men each time into 10 man wall to create his own shot or find a pass if his teammates aren't overlapping or making incisive runs to open up space. When you look at where Hazard became dangerous it was when he was either one v. one or on an overlap. This is where Origi has been infinitely more helpful than Lukaku and where Benteke is missed because Origi and Benteke can play in tight spaces with great creativity. Hazard is being ragged for a poor game v. Russia yet he completed 13! dribbles. Hazard does deserve criticism but he's not getting any slack despite being constantly double and triple teammed and not getting overlapping incisive rubs from his teammates on a consistent basis.

Look we've gone over this plenty if times Lukaku is what he is, a poacher. He's terribly ineffective as a target man because his first touch with the back to the goal is poor. Also Lukaku is poor in the air for someone of his size. I'm not slating him as this is the reality of how he plays. That's why it was so frustrating to hear people say that he and Benteke were the same. Benteke is the best aerial duelist in the world and the numbers support it. Benteke is also an excellent target man. Hence the reason I thought Benteke would have been an excellent fit for Chelsea because he's perfect for Chelsea's set up, plays with a mean streak, wins almost everything in the air and he has a delicate first touch most of the time. As for Origi he's better in the air than Lukaku has a much better first touch, faster, and his positional sense is better than Lukaku. Lukaku has a goalscorer's sense and great physical skills and shows good touch when he has space. Lukaku can work for Chelsea but only in either a two forward set up or as an inside winger/forward.

He's been dire thus far in the WC

I think he needs a change of perspective. Going to Zenit was a terrible career move for Witsel. I'd love to see him at Chelsea becuase I think he's such a valuable box to box midfielder to have, but I think he's a bit redudant with Matic. Even so, I think he couldmake a difference in ball recovery and early transition for Chelsea. I do hope he gets away from Zenit soon.

Origi is a different type of player. My suggestion was more that at 40 mil Euros Chelsea could get a young striker prospect who will otherwise end up at Arsenal and full the LB position. I like Romelu a lot but I feel that he's never going to be a target man and that's how Chelsea plays at the moment and Romelu doesn't play that way. Romelu's touch is his touch and his touch with the back to the goal is never going to be gentle. So while Romelu would score more goals than the current strikers he's going to be just as infuriating in games where Chelsea faces teams parking the bus.

I think it was also the lack of WC experience only Van Buyten had played in a WC game previously.

40 million would be a fleecing. Chelsea could get Rodriguez and Origi and have money left over

Huh? You must have been watching a different game. He was far from awful. He was getting no overlapping runs and was getting marked by 2/3 men each time he got the ball. He had a brilliant cross that no one ran into set up Vertonghen overlap with a back heel. Set up goal #2 with half the field run then passing to Mertens. He also drew a free kick on the edge of the box after beating two men. Sent Chadli through on goal on a 1-2. Has the level of expectation for him gotten too large?

No I wouldn't say that but when teams load the box and play extremely defensive football Lukaku struggles a great deal.

Not sure why anyone was surprised Lukaku performed poorly as he's not a target man and never will be. Benteke is 1000x the target man that Romelu is. I wouldn't mind selling Romelu if Chelsea were to spend some of the money on Origi as a younger cheaper replacement. Lukaku needs open space and to play facing goal to be successful.

Umlaut on the O for Roberts??? So what you are saying is you're a butthurt bellend, Mr. Roberts?

Need a shopped Cesc face with the Cesc chant instead of Yes

De Bruyne is a better play, but I do believe that Hazard is due for a monster NT game so Algeria could be it. You never know who will take to the World Cup spotlight.

I'm sure Arsenal said they weren't pursuing Cesc but that being stated in the media does not satisfy the legal requirements of the contract. I would imagine that the 1 week clause can only be voided by a written declaration by authorized agents of Arsenal stating Arsenal's intent to refuse the repurchase of Cesc as well waving their rights to the remainder of one week period. Granted since I haven't see the contract I can only hypothesize. It's really not in Arsenal's interest to waive the one week clause save for good will with Barca and Chelsea.

Why does any deal with millions of dollars take time? Lots of details needed to be addressed. It sounds like there is a deal in principle and the small details need to be worked out.

MVG= still recoverintg from his knee and he's 22 with only Erdivisie experience Chalobah = 18? needs to be loaned. Romeu= Could be sold Swift = No experience Baker = Limited experience RLC= No experience I'm all for integrating academy prospects, Romeu and MVG, but chances are only MVG will make the squad and he's an unknown quantity with limited experience not having been a Mourinho acquisition with a bad knee injury. I don't know how much Mikel has left in the tank. Leaves Ramires and Matic as reliable options when Ramires isn't getting suspended for mindless idiocy. Defintely need better quality depth and experience IMO.

I think xPetrCechx was being sacrastic. Nothing in the transfer world moves fast and Chelsea is pretty quick to get deals done becuase they don't nickel and dime deals to death. If you don't believe me look at some rival boards especially the mancunian ones. They're pissed because they don't even have a sniff as of yet and they're in desperate need to get some good business done because they really cannot afford to miss the CL again.

That what if game does lead to interesting specualation but ultimately we don't really know. Frankly I think Lukaku could have a made a difference between 3rd and 1st for the simple reason that he creates problems for defenders and he opens up additional space.

The problem is that FIFA defied logic in awarding Qatar the world Cup. Blater himself even admitted that FIFA ignored the heat issues. That's what created alot of the contraversy with Qatar winning the 2022 World Cup bid. It's not an illogical conclusion to suggest that something may have been awry when a country who has record 50 degree celsius tempartures an minimal soccer infastructures is awarded a WC. The other problem is that this isn't the first allegation of corruption/bribery when it comes to FIFA. I liked the Qatar persentation and I wouldn't mind a WC there, but not if we're going to have players and fans collapsing from heat exhaustion.

I think people are forgetting that Lukaku "wasted" one season at Chelsea barely playing when he was 18. He needed to be loaned this past season not played as 3rd option striker. The striker issue was one that needed to be fixed by Chelsea by not relying on a 20 year old to be the savior. He still needs seasoning but at least now I think either a 2nd striker positionon top champions league or lead position at Europa League level is where he needs to be. As for what he "deserves" it's nothing, but consider that he's scored more goals in the PL (31) than Torres in far fewer games. He's got a better scoring rate than Ba by far. Lukaku has his deficiencies and I do wonder if he'll never been more than adequate as a target man and if he'll get better than average/decent with his back to goal. Maybe he doesn't fit in with Chelsea's current system, but to suggest he's had a fair shot is somewhat laughable as we haven't seen him in a Chelsea kit outside of a few brief late minute sub appearances or a few games back in 2011-2012. IMO selling him is a massive mistake unless you can bring in someone as good or better to be the second striker and frankly I don't see anyone that fits that description. One would think we would have learned from the Sturridge debacle that goal scoring strikers don't grow on trees and aren't easily found. While he does have some questions about aspects of his play the one aspect that he has as an innate talent is the ability to score goals which isn't something you can learn, you can improve upon your innate ability but your innate ability has an upper and lower limit and for Lukaku his ability to score goals appears to have an extremely high upper limit. As for how he goes about doing that it not going to be the most efficient or precise manner, but sometimes you have to score sweaty goals to win. However to be a bit more fair he does score his fair share of crackers see 1st goal v. Sweden or 3rd goal v. Luxembourg so it's not like he's bereft of technical skill.